1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a configuration of mini-volume reaction receptacles of which the housings of each receptacle encloses an elongated chamber that, by its ends, is connected to apertures of the particular housing, and wherein the housings each have the same base surface and are of slight height relative to the base surface and are stacked one above the other while the base surfaces are mutually aligned, and wherein at least one aperture of one receptacle communicates with at least one aperture of a consecutive receptacle as seen in the order of stacking.
2. Description of the Related Art
A configuration of this kind is known from FIG. 6B of WO 96/14934. In this configuration, two receptacles are stacked one on the other within the cavity of a basic housing while subtending a communication passage. The chambers are designed for different purposes of reaction and allow carrying out different reactions on a specimen that, in sequence, is moved first into one of the chambers and then is moved through the communication passage into the other chamber. Such a design allows a number of different applications. For instance, one chamber may be used to purify DNA material and PCR (polymerase chain reaction) may be carried out in the next chamber. As indicated in FIG. 7 of the document, the design may be modified by being fitted with a heater for the PCR chamber.
The known basic design of this housing comprising the stacked array is required to support in place the stack and includes intake and outlet ducts to supply specimen material to the chambers. However, the basic housing also demands substantially large areas exceeding by far the base area of the chamber cases. Moreover, the required basic housing entails substantial increases in costs.
A stacked array of two chambers is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,902,624, wherein the chambers are received compactly in one common housing. This design allows an array of several tightly adjacent receptacles that may be serviced jointly through the pipette tips of a multiple pipette configured in the conventional grid of a micro-titration tray. The chamber configuration of the US '624 patent is fitted for such purposes with a pipette-accessible aperture at its top.
However, the application of the US '624 patent incurs the drawback of the firmly integrated configuration of the two chambers, thereby constraining use of the two chambers only in a fixed relation. Using the chambers individually or changing, for instance, the sequence of the chambers or the number of chambers required in a given process is precluded.